Noble House & Resorts seems to have
updated its disclosure concerning the payment card breach reported
recently to include more properties and restaurants than they had
known about at the time of their first public statement. At that time, the only property that they
had confirmed as compromised was Ocean Key Resort & Spa.

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 2, 2016 /PRNewswire/
— Hutton Hotel values the relationship it has with its guests and
understands the importance of protecting payment card information. After being
alerted to a potential security incident by its payment processor,
Hutton Hotel began an investigation of its payment card system and engaged a
leading cybersecurity firm to assist. Findings from the investigation show that
unknown individuals were able to install a program on the payment processing
system at the Hutton Hotel designed to capture payment card data as it was
routed through the system. The program
could have affected payment card data—including cardholder name, payment card
account number, card expiration date, and verification code—of guests who used
a payment card to pay for or place hotel reservations during the period from September 19, 2012 to April
16, 2015, or who made purchases at the onsite food and beverage outlets
from September 19, 2012 to January 15, 2015 and from August
12, 2015 to June 10, 2016.

Update.How much
would you spend to avoid this big an impact to revenues? I wonder if everything is backed up now?

Delta Air Lines says the August computer outage that led
to thousands of flight cancellations cost the company about $100 million in
lost revenue.

The Atlanta-based airline, whose annual revenue is about
$40 billion, included the estimate in a monthly performance report Friday. The amount includes both cancellations — about
2,300 over four days — and recovery efforts, Delta said.

Delta offered $200 travel vouchers to passengers whose
flights were canceled or delayed for more than three hours during the outage,
but it hasn’t said how many have sought the vouchers.

…Delta said the
outage occurred after a hardware breakdown led to a power failure at an Atlanta
facility. Some of the airline’s servers were not connected to backup power,
preventing a smooth restart.

On this week’s What’s The Point, Arvind
Narayanan, one of the authors of the Princeton study, discusses his
research, the latest in online tracking and what you (and our lawmakers) can do
to counter the trackers.

The French Supreme Court recently
ruled that an employer could not rely on the report of a private detective it
had hired to spy on one of its employees to obtain an injunction against him
because this was a breach of the employee’s privacy and that could not be
justified, however legitimate were its concerns.

The European Union has put its foot down and said that
ISPs and mobile networks that block advertisements and pornography are in
breach of rules published by BEREC –
the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications.

Currently, the EU allows network-level content blocking
for three reasons: for security purposes, to comply with a nation state’s laws,
or to manage network traffic.

…These rules
essentially clarify the EU’s position on network neutrality, and contain more
robust explanations of the rules surrounding zero-rating and “fast lanes”, in
addition to network-level content blocking.

I imagine there will be many stories like these.Sounds like a lawyer being very defensive to
me.

Via WSJ.com: “On Friday afternoon September 2, 2016, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation released a summary of its investigation
into allegations that classified information was improperly stored or
transmitted on a personal e-mail server Hillary Clinton used during her
tenure as secretary of state. The FBI
also released its summary of former Mrs. Clinton’s July 2, 2016
interview with the FBI. The FBI
concluded its probe earlier this year and recommended not bringing charges in the
matter.

CHATBOTS EXPLAINED: Why businesses should be paying attention
to the chatbot revolution

Advancements in artificial intelligence, coupled with the
proliferation of messaging apps, are fueling the development of chatbots —
software programs that use messaging as the interface through which to carry
out any number of tasks, from scheduling a meeting, to reporting weather, to
helping users buy a pair of shoes.

·AI has reached a stage in which chatbots can
have increasingly engaging and human conversations, allowing businesses to
leverage the inexpensive and wide-reaching technology to engage with more
consumers.

…Via
The New York Times: “Broadband Law Could Force Rural
Residents Off Information Superhighway.” The headline should, perhaps, read “laws,” as
it’s currently restrictive laws in North Carolina and Tennessee
that are curbing city-run Internet service providers who are reaching customers
in areas that corporate providers won’t go.

…Via
the AP: “A judge ruled Friday that school districts [in Florida]
can’t hold 3rd graders back just because they score badly on a mandated
standardized reading test, saying that classroom grades and teacher evaluations
have to be considered.”

Links

About Me

I live in Centennial Colorado. (I'm not actually 100 years old., but I hope to be some day.) I'm an independant computer consultant, specializing in solving problems that traditional IT personnel tend to have difficulty with... That includes everything from inventorying hardware & software, to converting systems & data, to training end-users. I particularly enjoy taking on projects that IT has attempted several times before with no success. I also teach at two local Universities: everything from Introduction to Microcomputers through Business Continuity and Security Management. My background includes IT Audit, Computer Security, and a variety of unique IT projects.